this post was submitted on 25 Apr 2025
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[–] [email protected] 385 points 6 days ago (7 children)

I hate when people post hyperpartisan reporting because it makes me do homework. In this case, you made me listen to almost an hour of a three hour podcast with three techbros chatting about techbro crap in techbro ways. You owe me years of life.

Anyway, so the conspicuously missing context here is he's asked if they will let go of the subscription model and go after an ad business model instead and he responds "hopefully not" and clarifies that he thinks the AI differentiator from Google search is that it doesn't feed people ads.

He then transitions into saying that you'd need a super hyperspecialized profile for it to make sense and then maybe it could work but they haven't figured out long term memory well enough for that, which is when he talks about why they'd want to have a browser to build that hyperspecialized profile.

This is my least favorite type of misinfo, too, because he's actually kinda saying what they say he's saying, just out of context. But more importantly, because he says some other shit that is more outrageous, too. For example, when explaining why he thinks the subscription business will grow more than the ad business the way he puts it is that "people see it as hiring someone", so they're more willing to spend, and he ponders "how much do people pay for personal assistants and assistant managers and nannies?" and suggests that they'll provide similar services for cheaper to people who can't afford human help.

Which may not be as clickbaity and I get he finds it positive-on-the-aggregate, but is certainly some cyberpunk dystopia stuff that didn't need the out of context quoting to be a thing.

[–] [email protected] 89 points 6 days ago

Thanks for you sacrifice and service (it does sound like, but it is NOT sarcastic)

[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 days ago

You owe me years of life.

Best I can do is an upvote and a hearty thank you.

Thank you!

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago

We need more people like you, thank you

[–] [email protected] 25 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Thank you!

There is an implication, though, that they intend to collect as much data as possible regardless of which model they use? And in the article, he isn't selling any data, I think. Any mention of that?

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 days ago

To be clear, they ARE building an AI-forward browser and he is very plain about collecting a ton of user info. The way it's presented in context is that they intend to plug it in to their assistant/agent thing and surface relevant stuff to you on searches (which is the potential ad opportunity the article quotes as if it was the sole goal). But yeah, the implication is that they are collecting data regardless, even if the user profile ends up being used to cater AI responses to you specifically, to train models or whatever.

Hearing the guy talk about it I get the impression that he envisions an Apple-like ecosystem where they're constantly ingesting data and you're paying them to have their AI services act as a personal assistant and handle purchases and booking for you directly and so on, on top of anwering queries.

I would rather clip my toenails with a rusty chainsaw, myself, but that seems to be the idea.

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[–] [email protected] 64 points 5 days ago

I appreciate him saying it upfront. Makes it easy to stay away from all of their products.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Do all these dickheads go to a school to learn the same specific hand gestures?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Girfters emulating each other

[–] [email protected] 29 points 4 days ago* (last edited 4 days ago) (1 children)

Wow! I've always wanted a browser that would track everything about me! /s

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[–] [email protected] 43 points 5 days ago (1 children)

In other news, Perplexity has signed a deal with Motorola to have the browser preinstalled on their phones.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago

Thx, for the heads up. The only reason I'm not typing this on a motorola g85 is because I got distracted when I was ordering it. Now I've got to search for a different brand.

[–] [email protected] 58 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Companies are so removed from what users want, they only focus on what shareholders want to hear and don't consider that users will hate it.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Because there is legal precedent that says shareholders come first.

You can blame Dodge for this. Yes, that Dodge.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Oh, look, the reason Dodge reliability is garbage.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Real shocker, right? 😂

[–] [email protected] 5 points 4 days ago (2 children)

So to ensure that a company is more likely to be customer focused, rather than shareholder focused, it's likely a good idea to only go for companies not listed on the american stock exchanges?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 days ago

Yup. Same goes for being employed - if they're publicly traded they'll almost certainly treat their staff like absolute garbage.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

I mean, that's my take. Also why you hear a lot of moaning and groaning from enthusiasts when a company who makes well-loved products decides to go public. Enshittification always occurs.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Too bad, that long-term users still kind of decide the fate of the company (as shareholders at some point realize that their share probably is not worth it).

I'm really keen to see when this happens to Tesla, I'm thinking about shorting the stock, it's so vastly overvalued, and there's strong competition and sales are crashing everywhere (because of too much Nazi)

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago (3 children)

But then users use it anyway for some reason. Many people care so little.

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[–] [email protected] 55 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That’s like a cigarette brand marketing themselves as the most cancer-causing.

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[–] [email protected] 63 points 6 days ago (2 children)

When using my current browser, any guess as to how often I've said to myself "I need a browser that spies on me more"?

[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 days ago

Beep boop, this is your browser speaking. You have stated that you need a browser that spies on you more one (1) times.

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[–] [email protected] 125 points 6 days ago (6 children)

Why would I use such a browser?

[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Because some influencer say you should. Works this way for too many people.

[–] [email protected] 56 points 6 days ago (2 children)

The amount of folks I see use Opera GX "gaming browser" because some influencer said so...

[–] [email protected] 43 points 6 days ago (2 children)

What the fuck is a gaming browser. Browsers show web pages.

[–] [email protected] 37 points 6 days ago (1 children)

It downloads RAM for you, sells your browsing data to major gaming companies, helps you stay on top of your Twitch subs by disabling the ability to block web notifications.

You know, a gaming browser.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Dude, you forgot that it had built in led control. We all should know by know that gaming = leds

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[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago

I'm still shocked at how many seemingly tech-literate people use and defend Brave because of influencers.

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[–] [email protected] 27 points 6 days ago

"Because it really gets you, y'know?"

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[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago

What a stupid name for a company.

[–] [email protected] 42 points 6 days ago (2 children)

And people would voluntarily use this browser ....why?

[–] [email protected] 24 points 6 days ago (10 children)

Weirder things have happened. Like people using Brave voluntarily.

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[–] [email protected] 53 points 6 days ago

This is really good information, now I know to avoid their browser like the plague.

[–] [email protected] 64 points 6 days ago (3 children)

Srinivas believes that Perplexity’s browser users will be fine with such tracking because the ads should be more relevant to them.

Believes it, or is just spinning it that way?

You could show me an ad for exactly what I want in that moment and I'd immediately not want it any more.

Enough already.

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[–] [email protected] 50 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I would like for the people, who come up with these ideas, to dogfood their own product. Actually force them to try their own medicine. It would be a single digit percentage of acceptance then

[–] [email protected] 18 points 6 days ago

You grossly underestimate how much some people truly love the idea of highly personalized ads. People who believe they are the best possible outcome and cannot fathom why anyone would have any problem with them at all. That's who you are asking to dogfood this product, and they would and would find no issues with it.

[–] [email protected] 49 points 6 days ago

Where is the hacktivism when you need it? These companies need to be gutted from the inside out.

Begin, the AI wars have.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago

Oh yeah I'm definitely going to use that. He's a marketing genius.

[–] [email protected] 44 points 6 days ago (1 children)

I think I read somewhere they want to buy Chrome from Google if they are forced to sell. So not many changes, just switching owners who ultimately do the same thing.

i’m not a Chrome user, so screw both google and perplexity.

[–] [email protected] 28 points 6 days ago (1 children)

OpenAI also wants to buy Chrome.

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[–] [email protected] 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Hey, look for that browser to fail instantly as no one will use it.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 6 days ago

They don't want people to use it. They want Google to give them a big bag of money so they can integrate it into chrome.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 6 days ago (2 children)

These fuckers are just so delusional and out of touch with reality. Personalized ads my ass. We've been promised those for decades but pretty much all the ads I see on YouTube are from major retail chains with precisely zero relevance to me. They will show the ads of whoever pays for them. Your personal preferences are only relevant when it comes to targeting you with political propaganda.

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[–] [email protected] 21 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Oh, time to stop using any perplexity products

[–] [email protected] 31 points 6 days ago

Perplexity is a free AI-powered answer engine that provides accurate, trusted, and real-time answers to any question.

That's not gonna be hard, fortunately.

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